The Year in Schmaltzy, Crappy, Cringe-Inducing Music: 1968
A couple of months ago I wrote the first installment of a new feature for me here on REBEAT, “The Year in Schmaltzy, Crappy, Cringe-Inducing Music,” in which I look at some of the really bad music for randomly selected years in the 1960s and ’70s. Since I laid down the rationale for doing this and the ground rules for inclusion in my first column, let’s get right to it.
A while back, when I did my article on why 1967 was the best year in music, 1968 ran a very close second. You wouldn’t know that from the songs featured in this article, but it truly was a fantastic year for music. Look at some of the songs that ranked among the top 100 hits according to Billboard: “Hey Jude,” “White Room,” “Mrs. Robinson,” “La-La (Means I love You),” “Born to Be Wild,” “Jumpin Jack Flash,” “Light My Fire,” “Lady Madonna,” “Think,” and many, many more.
Unfortunately, as always, there was some pretty bad stuff too, and in fact the first two songs on this list of dubious hits were also on that list of the Top 100 Hits of 1968. There’s just no accounting for taste I guess.
“MacArthur Park” Richard Harris (Billboard #2)
Do a Google search on “worst songs of all time” or something like that and “MacArthur Park” is pretty sure to show up on every single list. Humorist Dave Barry deemed it the worst hit song ever recorded, and you won’t get too much argument from me. It was written by Jimmy Webb, who actually made some decent contributions to American music in the 1960s including “Wichita Lineman,” “Up, Up, and Away,” “The Worst that Could Happen,” and others. But this is not one of those “decent contributions.”
Despite the fact that so many people today seem to hate this song that references a cake left out in the rain, apparently a lot of recording artists didn’t feel the same why. Acts as diverse as the Four Tops and Frank Sinatra did the song, and Donna Summer had a big hit with it later. Let’s give credit where credit is due though: the Association, the first group offered the song, turned it down. It took the actor Richard Harris to do the song and do it justice (if you want to call it that). Interestingly, for a person who made a living having to know his lines, he couldn’t get the lyrics right, and said “MacArthur‘s Park” a number of times instead of “MacArthur Park.” Not a big deal, you say? What if someone went to New York and told you how much they enjoyed Central’s Park? And recorded a song about it? In any event, it’s a pretty bad song all around.
“Honey,” Bobby Goldsboro (Billboard #1)
“Macarthur Park” was the first song in this survey that was also on that list of the Top 100 hits of the year, weighing in at #51. Amazingly, this song was at #3, edging out “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” at #4, “People Got to Free” at #5, and “Sunshine of Your Love” at #6. I dislike “Macarthur Park”; I really hate “Honey.” It epitomizes schmaltz, as Goldsboro tries to wring out your tears by telling you about his wife (in musicland, not real life) who died. Goldsboro did several songs that relied on the listener’s empathy and pity (“See the Funny Little Clown”) and wholesomeness (“Watching Scotty Grow”) which came off of corny then, and worse now. I think that’s why he’s rarely remembered as one of the great pop artists, even though he had more than two dozen Top 100 pop singles.
If you want to hear a pretty good song by Goldsboro, perhaps indicative of what could have been, 1964’s “Little Things” is pretty decent. This one, not so much.
“Tip Toe Through the Tulips,” Tiny Tim (Billboard #17)
Tiny Tim, born Herbert Buckingham Khaury, was one weird dude. He played the ukulele and sang in a falsetto, and performed under names such as “Larry Love, the Singing Canary” and “Dary Dover” before eventually settling on Tiny Tim. He covered a wide variety of songs in that falsetto of his, and surprisingly “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” a cover of a tune from the 1929 film Gold Diggers of Broadway, actually charted. To all the world Tiny Time was a novelty act, but apparently Tim was dead serious. He wasn’t going for laughs – he considered himself a serious musician.
In some ways that was pretty tragic. Last month I pointed out that C.W. McCall and Rick Dees knew exactly what they were about with their 1976 money grabs “Convoy” and “Disco Duck,” and like those songs, “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” isn’t the kind of song around which to build a fan base. It was Tim’s only Top 40 chart record.
For an odd guy (who apparently was actually a pretty nice man), the weirdest thing of all I ever heard about him came from an interview I read some years ago. While the interviewer was talking to him he opened a jar of salsa and drank the whole thing just as you or I would drink a soft drink. He apparently drank several jars of the stuff a day. One of a kind, that Tiny Tim.
“Little Arrows,” Leapy Lee (Billboard #16)
How can a year that gave us classic albums such as Electric Ladyland, Beggars Banquet, The White Album, Cheap Thrills, Head, Tell Mama, and others, also be the year that gave us so much of this really, really odd music? Lee was from England, and while when it comes to rock it’s not hard to argue that nobody did it better than the Brits, when it comes to pop it might be a different story. This one of those songs that you can listen to and you just know it was more popular in England than here, and you wouldn’t be wrong. It’s another one of those thin, substance-less songs that dominated the British pop scene for so much of the ’60s. It’s just surprising that it did so well here too.
Lee, with his cutesy song about cupid’s arrows, was the true definition of a one-hit wonder. This would be the only Top 40 hit he’d have not only in the US, but also England, Canada, and Australia as well.
“Here Comes the Judge,” Shorty Long (Billboard #8)
What do “Love Child,” “Reach Out, I’ll be There,” “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted,” “War,” “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” and a lot of other monster ’60s hits have in common with “Here Comes the Judge”? All were on Motown or a subsidiary, all had either the Andantes or the Originals (or both) singing backup, all had the famous Funk Brothers playing, and all were Top 10 hits. It shouldn’t be too hard, however, to figure out which song isn’t like the others.
Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In was a hip, irreverent television show that featured a running gag using “Here Comes the Judge” as its catchphrase (interestingly, I’ve noticed that Laugh In just became available on Amazon, and is free to Prime members). It doesn’t seem very funny now (as you can see from the clip below), but it was enough to inspire Long to do this song. Oddly enough, the Laugh In bit was based on a different song by Pigmeat Markham called, “Here Comes the Judge.” Anyway, like most novelty songs, it seems silly after the passage of decades and once it’s cultural significance has been lost. I can’t say that it’s worse than some of the novelty songs I’ve looked at in the last couple of months though – I’ll give it that. Listening to it today, it’s really hard to believe it sold enough records to move it into the Top 10, but somehow it did.
Bonus
“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” William Shatner (Did Not Chart)
I wondered if I’d ever have to break my promise to only cover Top 40 records, and at least I can say I lasted a few months. I’ll exercise the bonus loophole here so I can list this, truly one of the most wretched songs ever recorded.
Shatner (aka Captain James T. Kirk) did a lot of this kind of stuff, and you really have to hear his version of “Rocket Man” to hit the nadir. But this is pretty close. It’s from his Transformed Man album and is really just God awful. Nothing worse than a middle-aged man trying to be cool, covering those “hip” songs the teenagers “dig.” I don’t need to say much about this. Let’s let the transformed man speak for himself as we close out this month’s survey of excruciatingly bad music. Until next time.
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George L